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The Rewatchables ·

Broadcast News

year 1987decade 80sdirector James L. Brooksgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chuck Klostermanhost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennessey
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 34:12

The blow-up in Aaron's apartment after Jane leaves the correspondents' dinner, or Jane confronting Tom about the faked tears

Six nominees are rattled off: the first time William Hurt anchors with Jane in his ear and Brooks on the phone, played as a clip of the F-14 dogfight interview; and the balcony scene where Hurt is asked by Aaron to name the cabinet members and stops with 'you're enjoying this, aren't you', also played as a clip.

Hurt teaching Aaron how to anchor, leading to the jacket trick, which one host used when he started doing Countdown on ESPN, thinking of William Hurt every time he sat on the bottom of his jacket; Aaron's television disaster, recalled as the bar of what not to do the first time doing PTI, your whole world ending on live TV; the big fight after the disaster between Jane and Aaron; and Jane confronting Tom about the video trick.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:19:41

"wouldn't this be a great world if desperation and security made us more attractive if needy was a turn on"

The list runs through the great world of desperation and security making us more attractive, risking a life for a network that tests faces with focus groups, what you do when real life exceeds your dreams and the answer to keep it to yourself, 'I buried the lead', 'I've never fought for anyone before', 'does anyone win these things', and 'congratulations on history's longest winning streak', which one host calls his favorite of all of them.

The film

Broadcast News (1987)

Directed by James L. Brooks · Drama

133 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

William Hurt Tom Grunick Kimber Shoop as young Tom Grunick

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

31:10

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:31:10Read transcript
  • Ebert gave the film four out of four stars; the hosts say he nailed it and crushed this one, and admit they forgot to look him up for Reality Bites, which both Cisco (as transcribed) and Ebert mildly disliked.
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1:00:05

Casting What-Ifs

Debra Winger was cast as Jane and dropped out when she became pregnant; Sigourney Weaver, Judy Davis, Elizabeth McGov...

Debra Winger was cast as Jane and dropped out when she became pregnant; Sigourney Weaver, Judy Davis, Elizabeth McGovern, Christine Lottie (as transcribed) and Elizabeth Perkins were also considered

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:05Read transcript
  • Also considered for the Holly Hunter part were Sigourney Weaver, Judy Davis, Elizabeth McGovern, whom one host always kind of liked, Christine Lottie (as transcribed) and Elizabeth Perkins; Lottie would have been good.
  • Debra Winger was cast and got pregnant, forcing the production to remove her and scramble for replacements; one host doubts the movie works with Winger because he had too much history with her from too many 80s movies, whereas Holly Hunter was unknown to him, tiny, seemingly crazy and passionate, unlike any actress he had seen; Harrison Ford could be seen in the William Hurt role, and Luke Wilson is floated as a joke.
  • Brooks's search for a female heroine brought him to Debra Winger, who probably wishes she had waited nine months, since she would have been nominated again and the hosts would be talking about the Winger decade after Urban Cowboy, An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment; Winger and William Hurt are two sides of the same coin, huge 80s stars a moderately interested 2019 moviegoer would struggle to place.
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1:05:57

Half-Assed Internet Research

Albert Brooks phoned James L. Brooks at 3 a.m. after seeing a CNN reporter sweat, creating the sweating scene; Nichol...

Albert Brooks phoned James L. Brooks at 3 a.m. after seeing a CNN reporter sweat, creating the sweating scene; Nicholson went unpaid at his own request; the sweating scene took 24 takes; Switching Channels (1988) flopped as a competitor; Brooks and Hurt ambushed Holly Hunter with an ad-libbed cab-ride alternate ending that was spoiled by a crew member

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:57Read transcript
  • Albert Brooks was watching CNN when a reporter he had never seen before or since began sweating badly; he phoned James L. Brooks at three in the morning to say Aaron had to start sweating, which became the sweating scene, with the makeup lady's 'Jesus' a highlight; Jack Nicholson was not paid for his role at his own request.
  • James Brooks made them do 24 takes of that scene, which he does not usually do, because he thought it was the key part of the movie and wanted it perfect; Switching Channels, made in 1988 with Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds, was almost a competitor, a critical and box-office failure that started a Kathleen Turner slide.
  • The alternate ending is on YouTube; Brooks told Premiere he was open to who Jane ends up with, and during the cab scene he and William Hurt planned to surprise Holly Hunter by having Hurt jump in and ad-lib for two minutes, trusting she would not break character, but a crew member gave it away by saying 'Bill' just before the roll; Hurt and Hunter later felt the movie should have ended that way, while Brooks himself felt it was not right.
  • Flagged earlier as stepping on internet research: the Holly Hunter character is based on a woman Brooks met in 1984 at the conventions who was dating two men who worked in TV at the same time; he never said who, and the hosts imagine a Deep Throat reveal after they die.
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1:18:53

Picking Nits

The seven-year time jump is too long; Jane never smokes; the gazebo ending wraps things too tightly

The seven-year time jump is too long; Jane never smokes; the gazebo ending wraps things too tightly

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:53Read transcript
  • With the ending already covered, seven years still feels too long for the epilogue, four would do; Grantland started seven years ago, which felt like forever, though in that era a father could work at one newspaper for 25 years.
  • Why didn't she smoke? The character was dying to smoke, classic Diet Coke and cigarettes, and you could still smoke in the office in 87; getting into the cab with a cigarette and butts everywhere would have pushed it to the next level; Brooks must have been anti-smoking, or maybe Zerinsky (as transcribed) was not a smoker.
  • Flagged earlier for nitpicks: one host hates the ending of one of his favorite movies, weird and rainy, the gazebo and the jackets, Tom staying for one second then leaving, the 'I guess we'll be working together again' tidy wrap; it took seven more years for Tom to get the Nicholson job, which is believable, and Albert Brooks needed a kid old enough, so at least five years had to pass.
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1:24:39

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Did Holly Hunter's character die alone? What is the best movie of the 1980s?

Did Holly Hunter's character die alone? What is the best movie of the 1980s?

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:39Read transcript
  • Did Holly Hunter die alone in this movie? She says there's a guy, which one host thinks she made up and others put at two or three dates, since a woman who will not show a man tying his shoes unless he is really tying them would not lie about a relationship; she is successful, beautiful and smart, and the whole institution of marriage is driven by crazy people; leaving the correspondents' dinner is called crazy behavior by one host while the others disagree and say many people are drawn to that energy.
  • One host holds that she is a little too crazy, cannot sign up for the correspondents'-dinner exit, and would have been really mad if his date left the biggest night of the year in DC before they even went in. — Bill Simmons
  • The holdout is told this is a weird run after also disliking Troy from Reality Bites, and answers that he liked Troy as a character but would not have liked him or Holly Hunter's character in reality; he is teased as threatened by her and told to put on his suit of armor.
  • The best movie of the 80s splits into two strands, Die Hard, Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. versus Broadcast News, Raging Bull and The Color of Money; this movie exemplifies the best of 80s movies with its zippy Bill Conti score, great performances, pitch-perfect writing, a solid two hours and five minutes and stakes that are high without anyone diving off a skyscraper; one host would answer Bull Durham or Aliens on other days but, forced to pick one, says Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Broadcast News is called a better movie than Raiders, but personal taste cannot drive the answer, and media people are as biased toward it as archaeologists would be toward Raiders; the 80s was the video-store decade of watching fifteen movies a hundred times each, Goonies, Ferris Bueller, Aliens, Predator, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard; the decade was weird, with Oscar winners that baffle now, and the first half of Full Metal Jacket is the best movie of the 80s but the second half is not.
  • The framework used for The Social Network is reapplied: how well made, acted and original the film is, what it meant culturally and whether its meaning changed, and how it aged, all of which Broadcast News passes; the 80s are called the weakest film decade of the last thirty years of the century, behind the 70s and the 90s with its independent boom, full of sequels and canonical films like Tootsie and Gandhi that seem bad now, so a top ten of the 80s is hard to fill with anything but personal favorites or films that dated immediately, because producers took over and sanded off the edges.
  • Empire's best of the 80s list is read: Raiders, The Empire Strikes Back, Raging Bull, Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Die Hard, Aliens, E.T., Spinal Tap, Evil Dead and The Shining, all big popular movies; Back to the Future is a good candidate that aged nicely and mattered; When Harry Met Sally is a specifically 80s mass-screen sitcom; Broadcast News was cribbed from every year after, in its love triangle, its distinct characters and its dramedy mix; Do the Right Thing is the most culturally significant film of the decade, left out of the conversation.
  • Hollywood runs a thirty-year cycle of down periods: the 50s studio musicals and melodramas, the 70s boom that producers then monetized, the 80s with Gandhi, Out of Africa and Chariots of Fire winning Best Picture, and now franchises and comic-book movies with The Shape of Water and Green Book winning while Black Panther or Get Out will be remembered; the purpose of the Oscars may be to be wrong in the present tense, since Citizen Kane losing is still meaningful and the right calls, like Gump, are forgotten.
  • The case for Broadcast News as best of the 80s gains support because every imitation since has gone down in flames, including James L. Brooks's own, each piece having to work like Jenga; Airplane is a dark-horse candidate, though 1980 films like The Shining, Raging Bull and Airplane feel like 70s movies, while Fatal Attraction and Die Hard define the 80s movie; decades start late, the 80s in music running 1983 to 1991 and the 80s in film from Fast Times to Reservoir Dogs, which is why The Silence of the Lambs feels less 90s than The Matrix.
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